Video has surfaced appearing to show a New York City police officer taking $1,300 from a man who says he was robbed and then pepper-sprayed by the cop during a stop-and-frisk last month that ended without arrest.

The New York Daily News published exclusive video
of the September 16 incident on Wednesday this week and reported
that the Brooklyn district attorney’s office is now investigation
allegations of wrongdoing concerning the action exhibited in the
clip.

Attorneys for Lamard Joye, the man who is seen on film being
frisked, robbed and assaulted by the cop, told the Daily News
that the footage demonstrates disturbing conduct not just on the
part of the one officer, who has yet to be named by the New York
Police Department, but his fellow colleagues as well amidst a
series of scandals that has surrounded the agency for ages.

“One of the most disturbing things about the video is the
other cops standing around watching and doing nothing to stop the
wrongdoing,” lawyer Robert Marinelli told the paper.

According to the NYPD, the incident started to unfold on Sept. 16
when police were dispatched to respond to a call concerning a man
with a gun.

“When officers arrived at the scene, they encountered
numerous people at the location. As a result of the allegations,
the matter is under investigation by the Internal Affairs Bureau
and CCRB,” or Civilian Complaint Review Board, the NYPD told
the New York Times.

Marinelli provided a copy of the videotape to the Brooklyn DA’s
office, he told the Daily News, and the borough’s top attorney,
Kenneth Thompson, told the Times that he’s “aware of the
alleged incident and it is being actively and thoroughly
investigated.”

Until a proper probe concludes, however, what happened last month
to Joye and the reasoning behind it remains up for discussion:
according to Marinelli, his client was not arrested after being
frisked, his money was never returned and an explanation has not
been offered by the NYPD or any official agency.

“I believe that this officer made an assumption that any
money Mr. Joye possessed was obtained illegally and therefore he
would not report the theft,” Marinelli told the Times.
“This assumption was wrong. Mr. Joye is a hardworking
taxpayer. An incident like this would never occur in a more
affluent section of the city.”

According to the Daily News, Marinelli provided the DA’s chief
civil rights prosecutor with the not only the video footage, but
also pay stubs and other visual evidence that he says will show
that his client withdrew cash he earned from his construction job
in order to celebrate his birthday with his wife on the evening
the incident occurred.

Video footage recorded on an eyewitness’s cell phone does not
show a celebration, though, but instead an apparently fruitless
stop-and-frisk procedure gone awry.

“Gimme my money!” Joye is heard in the clip yelling at
the cop before being doused with pepper-spray,

“How ya gonna take his money?” “That’s robbery” and
“Get his badge number,” an onlooker is heard saying in
the Daily News clip.

When Joye’s sister tried to find out the officer’s identity — an
interaction also caught on tape — she was sprayed as well.

“I went to get his badge number and name,” Lateefah Joye
told the Daily News. “I leaned over to see his badge. He
pushed me away. I saw a two and a one and that’s when he
pepper-sprayed me in my mouth and my whole face.”

“I’m outraged,” she told the paper. “It’s very
outrageous. I’ve witnessed a lot of things cops have done. But
what can you do? I’m not a violent person. I’m an athlete.”

The NYPD’s tactics have increasingly landed the agency in the
spotlight as of late thanks to the routine sharing of amateur
video footage showing officers behaving in a barrage of
questionable conduct. In July, NYPD officers were videotaped
choking a man who was later pronounced dead.